The present invention relates to an improvement in containers having handhole cutouts and more particularly to containers with handholes that are used to package products which need to be shielded from light and/or contamination from the outside environment.
The conventional slotted container generally has four side walls (a pair of spaced side walls and a pair of spaced end walls) with closure flaps at both the bottom and top of the side walls. The top closure flaps are commonly known as major flaps (attached to the side walls of the container) and minor flaps (attached to the end walls of the container). Where the container is of the type that is handled by hand, generally the end walls contain handhole cutouts which may or may not have the material within the cutout remaining so as to provide a temporary closure for the cutout. Normally, however, the cutouts are stripped out and then additional material must be added to the container blank to cover and reinforce the handhole opening. One method of accomplishing the above noted result is to use the conventional top closure minor flaps of a regular slotted container. Two examples of this technique are fully disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,097,433 and 3,197,110. However, as will be readily noted from studying these two patents, use of the minor top closure flaps for such a purpose eliminates the flaps from their primary purpose of providing support for the top major closure flaps. U.S. Pat. No. 2,703,197 shows another alternative construction for the stated purpose wherein only a portion of the top minor flaps are cut away. However in the latter patent, the cut away portions of the top minor flaps only serve to reinforce the handhole opening without providing any shielding function. Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide both a handhole reinforcement and shielding means for a container without using a separate piece of material and without eliminating the normal function of the top minor closure flap members.